Middle East Media Research Institute

Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), according to the Institute's web site, "emphasizes the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel." It "explores the Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East."

MEMRI has several offices around the world. Americans work in D.C.; British, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, and Norwegians work in the European Union; Israelis in Israel; Japanese in Japan; Arabs also make up some of the people who work for MEMRI.

The MEMRI Web site also says, "selected subtitled clips from mainly arabic and Iranian television have been published since 2004." www.memritv.org

History
According to its website, founded in February 1998 "to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization. MEMRI's headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in Berlin, London, and Jerusalem, where MEMRI also maintains its Media Center. MEMRI research is translated to English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, and Russian."

MEMRI's stance is that it is opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, not Islam itself, although the integrity of this position may be questioned because of links on MEMRI's website to certain evangelical Christian organizations who take a harder line on Islam. Yigal Carmon, MEMRI's founder, is a former advisor on terrorism to the Israeli Prime Ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, so he actually worked for both Labor and Likud governments. Praise for MEMRI should be taken with a grain of salt since it is almost always motivated by politics, not the quantity or quality of MEMRI's work.

MEMRI has gained currency with most pro-Israel writers, as well as right-wing publications. For example, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman, a influential foreign affairs columnist, has used MEMRI translations a number of times in his columns. MEMRI is cited in several publications, such as The Times, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, The Jerusalem Post, The National Review, The Toronto Sun, Wall Street Journal, Libertad, FrontPageMagazine, Columbia Journalism Review, Associated Press, etc.

Translations
In an October 7, 2005, Nieman Watchdog article about MEMRI, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, Alex Kingsbury wrote:


 * "MEMRI monitors broadcast media an average of 16 hours per day and advertises its 'in-house capability to translate, subtitle and distribute the segments from Arab TV in real time to Western news channels across the world.'


 * "'Our goal is bridging the language gap between the Middle East and the West,' [said] MEMRI executive director Steven Stalinsky.


 * "Out of offices in Washington, Berlin, Baghdad and Jerusalem, the Institute provides translations in English, German, Hebrew, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, and Russian. They regularly monitor the print media in numerous countries, religious sermons, textbooks and a host of television channels including Al-Arabiya TV (Dubai), Al-'Alam TV (Iran), Iqra TV (Saudi Arabia), Syrian TV (Syria) and Al-Majd TV (UAE).


 * "MEMRI boasts 75,000 subscribers to its daily mailing list, including many journalists and academics, who receive regular updates about new translations. The institute also delivers briefings on Middle Eastern media to the FBI and Congress, Stalinsky [said].


 * "Video clips and translated transcripts are MEMRI's bread and butter. ... The institute has been the target of criticism for highlighting inflammatory statements from the vast stream of Middle Eastern media. Stalinsky [said] that while there is editorial judgment in deciding what gets translated, the Institute also covers and amplifies the voices of Middle East reformers."

Threatening Critics
In November 2004, MEMRI threatened Middle East scholar Juan Cole (Univ. of Michigan) with a SLAPP lawsuit unless he retracted some of his claims.

Nature of the charges pace Cole:
 * "Colonel Carmon's letter makes three charges: 1) that I alleged that MEMRI receives $60 million a year for its operations. 2) That I alleged that MEMRI cherry-picks the vast Arab press for articles that make the Arabs look bad. 3) That I said that MEMRI was affiliated with the Likud Party."

Cole replies:
 * 1) I think he would find that in democratic countries, in any case, a dispute over an organization's level of funding would be laughed out of court as a basis for a libel action. In fact, I am giggling as I write this.
 * 2) "I continue to maintain that MEMRI is selective and biased against the Arab press, and that it highlights pieces that cast Arabs, especially committed Muslims, in a negative light."
 * 3) "I did not allege that MEMRI or Colonel Carmon are "affiliated" with the Likud Party. What I said was that MEMRI functions as a PR campaign for Likud Party goals."

Source: MEMRI tries a SLAPP.

Issues of reliability and veracity
MEMRI is operated by a group closely associated with the Israeli intelligence organizations. Now, in an article in Haaretz, we find that the Israeli Army has sought to plant stories about "terrorism" in the press, and
 * "Psychological warfare officers were in touch with Israeli journalists covering the Arab world, gave them translated articles from Arab papers (which were planted by the [Israel Defense Forces] IDF) and pressed the Israeli reporters to publish the same news here." --Amos Harel, IDF reviving psychological warfare unit, Haaretz, January 25, 2005.

This should raise a question or two about the reliability and veracity of the stories peddled by MEMRI.

This is what Prof. Juan Cole had to say about this:
 * "So is MEMRI, which translates articles from the Arabic press into English for thousands of US subscribers, in any way involved in all this? Its director formerly served in&hellip; Israeli military intelligence. How much of what we "know" from "Arab sources" about "Hizbullah terrorism" was simply made up by this fantasy factory in Tel Aviv? As someone who reads the Arabic press quite a lot, this sort of revelation is extremely disturbing. I also saw an allegation that British military intelligence had planted stories in the US press about Saddam's Iraq. You begin to wonder how much of what you think you know is just propaganda manufactured by some bored colonel. No wonder post-Baath Iraq looks nothing like what we were led to to expect by the press, including the Arab press!"

Another assessment:
 * If you rely on MEMRI for your knowledge of Arab discourse, you are really not informed. Arab public opinion, based on MEMRI's releases, is reduced or caricatured to either Bin Laden fans or Bush fans, while Arab public opinion is mosty a fan of neither people. --As'ad AbuKhalil


 * Although widely used in the mainstream media as a source of information on the Arab world, it is as trustworthy as Julius Streicher's Der Sturmer was on the Jewish world. --Norman Finkelstein

Wafa Sultan
Los Angeles based Syrian/American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan appeared on an al-Jazeera television show opposite Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouly, a lecturer at Cairo's Al-Azhar University. Memri offered a heavily edited version of the show, and mistranslated several of the exchanges, making it appear that al-Khouly had issued a death fatwa against Sultan. Wafa Sultan became known as someone who had her life threatened because of her "Clash of Civilizations" point of view.

It turns out that Sultan had appeared on a daytime al Jazeera show, roughly equivalent to Jerry Springer, that Western Educated Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouly had not issued a fatwa, and as he is not a recognized Mufti, had he issued a fatwa, it would not be considered in any way, authoritarian.

A secularist blog covering topics broadly related to MENA, named Aqoul, took a tape of the whole show, and translated it, making it available in a PDF file: Transcript Translation: al-Jazeera - The Opposite Direction (26/02/2006). Posts on Aqoul, as well as one on the Winds of Change blog offer a great deal of insight into the distortions:


 * Fatwas and Wafa Sultan, Aqoul, March 15, 2006
 * On MEMRI & Translations: Winds of Change, a Thread Reply, Aqoul, March 29, 2006
 * How to be a Muslim reformer, Aqoul, March 13, 2006
 * MEMRI Mendacity, brief thoughts, Aqoul, October 14, 2006
 * A Fine Illustration of MEMRI Mendacity, Aqoul, October 14, 2006
 * Wafa Sultan: A tale of two transcripts, Winds of Change, March 30, 2006

Funding
According to the National Review, 250 donors—foundations and individuals—fund MEMRI's activities. Among these private donors is the right-wing Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which gave MEMRI $100,000 from 1999 to 2000. In 2001, the Randolph Foundation gave MEMRI $100,000, and in 2004 the John M. Olin Foundation gave $5,000, according to Media Transparency.

Founders
MEMRI was co-founded by Meyrav Wurmser and Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence, "both of whom were early critics of the Oslo accords." 

Staff
In its original website of 1998, MEMRI listed 6 staff members: its President and cofounder Israeli Colonel Yigal Carmon, cofounder Dr. Meyrav Wurmser (Executive Director), Aaron Mannes (Director of Research), Yotam Feldner (Director of Media Analysis), Stacey Lakind (Research Associate), and Aluma Solnick (Research Associate). Stacey Lakind left in late 1998, and Aaron Mannes in early 2001; the others were still MEMRI staff as of October 5, 2001, when MEMRI stopped listing its employees on its website. Dr. Meyrav Wurmser left in early 2002 to join the Hudson Institute; she was replaced as Executive Director by Steven Stalinsky. 

Aluma Solnick appears to have changed her name to Aluma Dankowitz, in which case she is now Director of MEMRI's Reform Project. 

As of January 17, 2002, MEMRI had a much larger number of employees and had "over 30" in August 2002, with the current number unknown). Citing bomb threats, it provides no information on their identities beyond stating that they are "of different nationalities" and different religions.  These include or have included:
 * B. Chernitsky/Tchernitzky (Research Fellow, 2003)
 * Allan Polak (Director of Communications, 2002)
 * Jan Cleaver (2002)
 * Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli (Chief Analyst, joined 2001; Iraqi-born Israeli, former World Bank employee)
 * Ayelet Savyon (Director of Iranian Media Project, 2001)
 * Ronen Sebag (Research Associate, 2001)
 * Eli Carmeli (Research Associate, 2000)
 * Miriam Posner was Associate Director of Communications and Special Projects until recently, having since moved on to PANIM, "the Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values".
 * Jess Sadick claims to have helped found the organization, but to have left in 1998.
 * Adam Pashut (supposedly Research Fellow, 2004) has a name meaning "simple person" in Hebrew, and is presumably a pseudonym. )
 * The Berlin branch's Director is Dr. Jochen M? (2004)
 * Richard Wachtel, spokesman for the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) (2007)
 * Other members or ex-members include Goetz Nordbruch, Research Fellow, 2001 ; Director, 2002 and German domain name contact; and Mirjam Glä³¥r (2003).

The Jerusalem branch includes:
 * Yael Yehoshua (Research Fellow, 2003)
 * Ezra Dalumi (2004)
 * Angi Jacobs (2002)
 * Menahem Milson (Lt. Col. (ret.), Academic Advisor)
 * Yotam Feldner and Aluma Solnick are also now based there..
 * The domain names contacts for its site are Shmuel Segev and Noga Feldner of Amutat Yesodot Shalom (Organization for the Foundations of Peace); the former may be the author and Maariv journalist.

Users of MEMRI materials (alpha order)

 * Thomas Friedman – New York Times columnist.
 * "The role that MEMRI is playing in bringing the voices of the Arab and Muslim Reform – from Arabic into English, to the world – has been absolutely invaluable for everyone who cares about this process and wants to follow it." - Thomas Friedman, May 6, 2003


 * Kevin Myers – writes for the Irish Times and The Telegraph. He writes:
 * I receive an invaluable service from the Middle East Media Research Institute, which translates material from the region. What is impossible to appreciate without such translations is the sheer scale of genocidal anti-Semitism which infuses Palestinian Authority propaganda.


 * Stephen Schwartz – Tech Central Station.
 * In the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the ultraextreme sect of Wahhabism is the state religion, various sermons and other declamations were heard, alleging that Allah punished the Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and non-Wahhabi Muslims of the South Asian countries for their failure to accept Islam, above all in its Saudi form (as recorded and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute).


 * United States Commission on International Religious Freedom 2003 Report on Saudi Arabia (pdf) Eight endnotes credit material to MEMRI or Stalinski.
 * Numerous articles and commentary in the Saudi press are openly anti-Jewish, offensive, and discriminatory: the "Zionist movement" is labeled as evil; blood libel accusations are made; hatred toward Jews is encouraged; Jews are said to be trying to take over the world; and the existence of the Holocaust is denied.[60]
 * [60]See multiple translated articles with anti-Semitic and discriminatory language from the Saudi press at the Middle East Media Research Institute ( MEMRI ) Web site: [followed by four links]


 * Elie Wiesel – intellectual and Holocaust survivor.
 * "I hope you receive MEMRI's publications. I do. I find its material – translations and analyses of poisonous articles, hate-filled statements and slanderous accusations – vitally needed for the fight against antisemitism in the Arab world. Policy makers, legislators, teachers, and news commentators greatly benefit from its efforts to use truth in the service of peace." - Elie Wiesel, May 22, 2003


 * James Woolsey – former CIA director
 * "… the excellent Middle East Media Research Institute" -Former CIA director James Woolsey, June 10, 2002

Contact
MEMRI PO Box 27837 Washington, DC 20038-7837 Phone: (202) 955-9070 Fax: (202) 955-9077 Email: memri AT memri.org Web: http://www.memri.org